Syracuse, NY -- It took nearly three years of effort to produce this evening'’s grand opening of La Casita Cultural Center, but for some at the celebration the path stretched back years further.

“It’s been the dream of many of us for a long time,” said Bea Gonzalez, who grew up and received her earliest education on the Near West Side, the home of La Casita, which showcases Latino cultural.

Gonzalez is now dean of Syracuse University’s University College. When she was a child, there was nothing close to a Latino cultural center in Syrcuse. Her parents came here from Puerto Rico in the 1950s, when she was three years old, and they were among the city’s first Latino families.

Now Latino students from the same schools Gonzalez attended can to walk to a center where they can hear the traditional language of their families and see paintings, films and other art that reflect their families’ cultures.

“It feels awesome,” said Linda Fernandez, 12, who is in seventh grade at nearby Westside Academy at Blodgett. She and her classmate, Airrica Pagan, 13, read poems in English and Spanish at the grand opening.

The center is a project of Syracuse University and is run by The College of Arts and Sciences, with support from entities inside and outside SU, including University College.

The Near West Side traditionally has been home to the city’s largest concentration of Latino peoples, and a major goal of La Casita is to make them part of the new center. The neighborhood, its residents, schools and families, were part of the grand opening crowd at the new space in a renovated warehouse on Otisco Street. The crowd also included SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor, journalist Maria Hinojosa, of National Public Radio, among other notables and project supporters.

La Casita’s founders are SU faculty members Inmaculada Lara-Bonilla and Silvio Torres-Saillant, and Lara-Bonilla said they’ve worked for nearly three years in the community to enlist its involvement. They’ve used music, theater and other means to make the community a part of the center.

“Everything that will happen in here is happening because we’ve had focus groups, we’ve had conversations in the community and the people have told us this is what we want to see in La Casita,” she said.

La Casita will be the focal point for resources from across the city to create programming for the community, Gonzalez said. For the last couple of years, La Casita has provided programming without a home. Now it has one, she said.

“So it’s going to be a place where our community, all of our community, the Latino community and others, can really come together and share and really get to know one another in a way that we really haven’t been able to do in the past,” she said.